


The Key of F

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Angst, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bartender Castiel, Comfort/Angst, Dean Plays The Piano, M/M, Mary Dies, Mentions of Cancer, Openly Bisexual Dean, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, References to the Beatles, Sad Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 11:54:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5665180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He frequents the bar this time of night. He doesn't order anything, nor does he speak to anyone robbed of 56 teeth, but his fingers always bully the keys in F major and he always leaves a hearty tip on the bench of the baby grand piano before he leaves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Key of F

 

He frequents the bar often. He doesn't order anything, nor does he speak to anyone robbed of 56 teeth, but his fingers always bully the keys in F major and he always leaves a hearty tip on the bench of the baby grand piano before he leaves.

In an odd, but endearing way, the man reminds Castiel of a rat caught in the same metal trap—though his looks are far from a pesky rodent. His shoulders reach across the plains of Kansas and dip into boulders wrapped in a hostage of cotton farms. A field of freshly mowed barley blossoms on his head. He has famished eyes, the kind that gobbles every green in the forest and still craves the decadence of something purer of nature. Sadness drains him like a leech, leaving him a mere shell slumped over a hoary piano, but his hands never leave the keyboard.

On a particularly slow night, Castiel does something about it. He's laboriously wiping the counter of his last heart-to-heart as he watches the man’s head bow over the keys. One singular, haunting note rings out along with a few conspiring whispers.

Cas shrugs off the disdaining looks of paying customers as he cuts the invisible red tape between him and the piano man. "Hello,” he greets. It’s far from an introduction, but it suffices.

"No, you can't interest me in a drink, I don't care what the special is, and yes, I am totally sure," Piano Man sasses into the keys. His voice is as low as an A key, but there's little to no tenacity in it.

“You might have better luck switching to a minor scale.” The man’s head lifts and his long, right arm slowly slinks off the frame, revealing an expanse of freckles dipped in caramel skin. “Minor tends to harness an evocative sound despite the higher pitch.”

“I think my luck’s tapped out,” he replies, eyeing Cas up and down with a raised brow. “How do you know so much about music?”

Cas laughs, “You think you’re the only one singing a sad song around here? It’s a _bar_ ; people come here to drown their songs in a fifth of whiskey.”

“Not me.”

“Not you,” Cas acknowledges. “I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name.”

The man lends out his arm. “Dean.”

“Castiel,” he trades for the hand that’s offered to him. It’s marked with callouses, but warm to the touch. “What’s stopping you?”

Dean fishes out his wallet in his left back pocket. It’s a brown, crusty looking thing that looks like it’s been through a deep fryer and back. Out of it, he pulls three flimsy cards with a white frame. Cas leans against into the arm of the piano to get a better view. “That’s my daughter, Emma. She’s turning ten in February,” he says, his finger smudging her long, strawberry blonde hair. She’s a spitting image of her father.

“That’s my baby brother, Sam.” He references to a picture of a chubby, diaper-clad baby held in the arms of a gleaming boy with bowl-cut blonde hair with a small laugh. “Even though he’s not so little anymore.”

He hesitates on the last photo that frames a beautiful older woman with rich blonde hair spilling over milky white shoulders and laugh lines around her bright blue eyes. She’s leaning into a makeshift cutout where a man’s face used to be. “That’s my mom. She passed away short of Thanksgiving. Ovarian cancer.” Dean forces a smile. “’s funny how guys get so bent out of shape over a woman’s menstrual cycle when it’s a missed period that cost my mom her life.”

“Men are assholes, I should know, I’ve dated plenty.” Cas shuts his eyes after those words escape him, silently praying wormhole would open up beneath him. “I’m sorry, that was the wrong thing to say—”

He doesn’t register the thing that’s bobbing in Dean’s throat—a rich, guttural sound that, when it reaches his mouth, shakes Cas’s core, “No, it’s okay. It’s actually a helluva lot better than hearing ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ or ‘At least they’re together’.”

Dean bites his bottom lip, pondering something invisible to the naked eye, before scooting over on the bench. It’s something out of Wonderland for two grown men, but Dean doesn’t seem to mind their thigh-licking, shoulder-brushing proximity. In fact, he goes as far as to throw a toothy smile in Cas’s direction.

“What’s the song you were playing?”

“‘Hey Jude’,” Dean replies, quirking his head. “Or I should say _was_ trying to play. Mom was the voice and the rhythm, I was just the harmony.”

Cas hums in appreciation. “She was a Beatles fan.”

“Who isn’t? Although I’m more of a Stones kind of guy myself.” Cas’s sapphire eyes dip just below Dean’s lightly exposed _V_ -shaped collarbone. Despite the modesty that’s a grey long sleeve Henley and jean jacket, he has the kind of build that can pull off a black skintight t-shirt. He stares down at his hands with tears tugging at the corners of his olive eyes. “I’m just not sure who I am anymore, you know?”

“Who were you before?”

Dean sniffs through a laugh, “I don’t know, I mean I was the kind of guy who’d down a straight shot and hit on anything that moved. I wouldn’t get rejected often, so I took advantage of people—a _lot_ of people, some I even cared about. I’d like to think I’m not that person anymore, but it’s hard not having someone there to tell you you’re a little too big for your britches, you know?”

“What about your brother?” Cas asks.

Dean chortles, “Sam’s a hard ass, yeah,” but there’s a hardness in his eyes that conveys more than he’s saying—especially when he tucks the photograph back into his wallet.

“When I saw you here for the first time, I thought you were gorgeous,” Cas says, the words spilling out of him like a child-proof cup with a busted lid. “Not just in the physical sense. It’s your humanity. To anyone else it may look like a desperate attempt at happiness, but you try. And that’s more than what most people here can say about themselves.”

Dean turns to Cas with a blush he couldn’t get rid of if he was held at gunpoint. “You think I’m gorgeous?”

“If you want to be on the nose about it, sure,” Cas laughs, nudging his shoulder.

Dean’s eyes flicker to Cas’s lips, but before he can do anything rash, his head snaps back to the bare keys in front of them, where his hands are resting once again. The song he begins to play in time with his voice isn’t “Hey Jude”, but it holds the same cadence:

 

_“The long and winding road_

_That leads me to your door_

_Will never disappear…”_


End file.
